Twenty-six years ago, Sgt. Le Dinh Lau was paralyzed in both legs during an American bombing attack on his unit. Now 57, he spends most of his days in a wooden wheelchair, unable to forget.
"I hate the U.S. government," he said. "I can't forget the war because it changed my life. I can't move because of it. If I wasn't injured, I could have done anything."His legs limp, his life defined by the yellow walls of the compound where he lives, Lau can now do very little.
He and about 50 others in the government home for paralyzed and brain-damaged veterans 30 miles southeast of Hanoi are given free room and board, plus a monthly allowance equivalent to $24.
The home is clean and spacious and the residents are well-fed, but the television is apparently reserved for special occasions, so the only daily distractions are chess, the radio and newspapers. Most of the veterans spend the days in their wheelchairs under a broad tree in the compound.
As Vietnam seeks normal relations with the United States, these veterans, like thousands of others all but forgotten in similar homes across the country, live with their terrible wounds and memories.
About 1 million soldiers on the communist side were killed between 1965 and 1975. Countless soldiers and civilians were wounded.
The United States, which supported South Vietnam, withdrew in 1975 and the country was reunified a year later under communist control.
Lau's 53-year-old wife, Cao Thi Khanh, who led a unit of 11 soldiers, met her husband at the veterans' home after she was wounded by shrapnel from an American bomb in 1968. She lost her left eye and passes out for hours at a time because of brain damage.
"When I was young, U.S. bombs and U.S. soldiers took my life," she said, sitting with her husband and children in their one-story, two-bedroom house in a row of dwellings in the compound. Across the way is an apartment-style building for single veterans.
It is a clean, airy home, decorated with colorful calendars and family pictures.
Their eldest son could not find a job in the province and is looking elsewhere. The youngest is still in school. The couple's daughter, Le Kim Thu, 20, has a scholarship at a teachers' college.
"The U.S. government has caused a lot of trouble, injuries and death to my parents and other people," the daughter said. "But now, the U.S. government knows it made a mistake and so it is good to make friends with the U.S. In the world today, peace is very important. It is not necessary to be hostile with each other."
Out in courtyard, more disabled veterans joined the others under the tree to enjoy the late-afternoon breeze.
Sgt. Do Van They, 52, bathed and clean-shaven in a white, short-sleeved shirt and blue cotton pants, sat in his wooden wheelchair and said he had nothing to do with his life. Before the war, he had hoped to be a teacher of mathematics or physics.
"I had a lot of dreams," he said, but they ended when he was shot in the back during a battle with the Americans. "If the U.S. soldiers hadn't come here," he said, "I would be normal."
He said he harbors no animosity toward the American people but does not extend that generosity to their leaders.
"The Vietnamese government has opened its mind to relations with the U.S., but the U.S. government still hasn't recognized its mistakes," he said.